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INSIDE UFOLOGY
February 1988
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There already seems to be some controversy surrounding the series of UFO
sightings reported in Gulf Breezes, Florida. In that case, a building
contractor claims to have taken as many as 16 Polaroid photos and one Beta
videotape of an object hovering near his home, not far from Pensacola. The
sightings started around the middle of last November, and were exciting
enough to MUFON State Director Donald Ware that he immediately called Walt
Andrus, MUFON's Grand Poobah, in Texas and said, "You better get over
here." He did get over there, and was duly impressed by what he saw. "Very
high quality stuff," was Andrus' reaction.
Budd Hopkins has reportedly just returned from Florida, where he, too,
viewed the evidence, and he, too, was very excited. And so was MUFON's
Director of Investigations, Dan Wright. "This stuff puts Billy Meier to
shame," seems to be the general reaction.
But the comparisons with Meier are more than just casual. For one thing,
despite repeated appearances by the object, no other witnesses have
stepped forward, although word has it that several ANONYMOUS witnesses do
exist. For another, its amazing how lucky one man can be, to be in the
right place at the right time, several times running, to knock off a few
good UFO pictures, when the rest of us slobs go entire lifetimes without
even seeing a strange light in the sky. And its been our experience that
cases that seem too good to be true, always are.
Further, its reported that NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has given the
videotape a cursory examination, and considers it a probable fraud. But
the examination did not make use of JPL's sophisticated computer analysis
facilities; rather, it was one man's opinion based on an eyeball of the
video.
Its entirely possible that we finally have definitive photographic proof
that alien spacecraft are operating in our atmosphere, and only time, and
widespread distribution of the video, will tell at this point. Certainly,
judging by the animated reaction of the normally stoic Wright, something
worth looking into has occurred, and its guaranteed to be one of the
classics of the field. We don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but we
counsel equal doses of caution and enthusiasm.
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Speaking of JPL, those three letters seem to be coming up more and more
often these days. In addition to the above analysis, at least two high
priests of that high-tech temple of Empiricism have held forth on the
Brewster video of the Hudson Valley Object, one pronouncing it an unknown
and the other putting the lie to the "planes in formation" theory.
Abduction expert Tracy Torme' visited the lab a while back (in the guise
of the new Executive Story Editor for Star Trek), and managed to elicit
curiosity in UFOs from some of the lab technicians and scientists. And Dr.
Lew Allen, the lab's director, has been mentioned as a possible MJ-12
member. Recall that JPL is the West Coast outpost of mega-skeptic Carl
Sagan....I'll bet they have some DANDY conversations there....
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An extremely reliable ParaNet source has uncovered confirmation, of sorts,
that a group calling itself Justice for Military Personnel did exist as
recently as 1975/76. It was apparently a paralegal organization which
specialized in providing legal assistance to military types and their
families. Our source tells us that one of their assignments was to help
cut through some red tape at Bentwaters AFB in England, site of a famous
UFO landing. (See JMP.UFO, Library Section 1).
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AND FINALLY...
Allen Benz, president of the Foundation for UFO Research, on the
cancellation of that group's highly touted banquet in Tucson:
"Oh, well, no use crying over crashed saucers...."
---Jim Speiser